Page 11 of Earl Crazy
“So I’m told, yes.” He thrust a pillow under his head, swung his feet up and lay back, stretching out on the settee.
Without any self-consciousness whatsoever, she plopped down into the chair across from him and fixed those dark eyes on him with an interest she didn’t bother to hide. “Your head is still bleeding. Shall I ring for a servant to see to it?”
“That’s not necessary.” He wasn’t going to wake his valet. It wasn’t poor Cheever’s fault he’d made his way to the bottom of a bottle of port, and taken a tumble down the stairs.
She sighed, then took up the cravat he’d abandoned earlier in the evening. “Here. Perhaps this will help.” She knelt on the floor beside the settee, and pressed it to the stinging cut on his temple. “Do you suppose you’ve concussed yourself?”
“I don’t think so, no.” He closed his eyes, fell back against the pillow, and gave himself up to the gentle pressure of her fingers, the soft brush of her fingertips in his hair. After a little while the throbbing in his head receded a bit, and he opened his eyes, taking in the face hovering beside him.
She was young, not more than nineteen or twenty years old, with a sharp little chin, full pink lips, a tumble of wild chestnut hair, and a pair of blue eyes with a thick fringe of dark eyelashes. Blue eyes, not brown, as he’d first thought. Not an ordinary blue, either, but a blue so dark in the dim light they were nearly sapphire.
Where in the world had she come from? He glanced at the mantel clock. It was close to two o’clock in the morning. What sort of young lady wandered about alone in the dark?
Only one kind. But what was she doinghere? This was Hampstead Heath, not Covent Garden.
Unless…had Darby sent him a doxy? It was the sort of thing Darby would do, and God knew there was no other rational explanation for the girl’s presence here.
She was alluring, and temptingly close. So very close, her breath warm against his lips, her fingers caressing his heated skin until the ache in his head gave way to a heavier, deeper ache in his groin.
It had been a long time for him— endless, lonely days in Ashford, the silence so relentless it became a roaring in his head, a weight holding him down, flattening him into nothingness, and it was here too, that terrible silence, lying in wait to devour him again…
He caught her wrist in his hand, and drew her closer.
She stared at him, her eyes wide, and a deep, fathomless blue. “What are you…”
Her words trailed off as he took her chin in his fingers and tilted her face up to his. “Kissing you,” he whispered, just before he took her lips. She froze against him, her body going stiff, but as he teased her lips open and delved inside she melted into him, gasping softly as he took her mouth deeply, tasting her.
She was so sweet, the deep, mossy scent of the garden clinging to her skin, and dear God, he couldn’t get enough of her. He slid his hands down to her waist, taking her mouth deeply as he urged her more tightly against him, and it felt like drowning, kissing her, like being swept up in a warm wave of desire, every inch of his body straining for her—
“Stop!” A pair of small hands landed on his chest and shoved him back, hard, then she leapt to her feet, her trembling fingers pressed to her mouth. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I was…” Well, it was obvious, wasn’t it? At least, it would have been so to a doxy.
Except now the fog of desire had begun to clear, he could plainly see she didn’tlooklike a doxy. She looked like an innocent, with those sweet pink lips, and her reaction…she was the very picture of outraged virtue. “I, ah, I beg your pardon. I thought you were a—”
He stopped himself just in time, but she heard it as clearly as if he’d said the word aloud. “Howdareyou? Why, I should have left you outdoors to freeze!”
Damned if he wasn’t beginning to wish the same. “I take it Darby didn’t send you here to, er…entertain me this evening, then?”
“I don’t know any Darby, and I assure you, no amount of money could induce me to stay the night with you!”
“If Darby didn’t send you, then how did you happen to make your way into my garden tonight?” Innocents didn’t wander about alone at night, for God’s sake. None of this made any sense!
“Not in the wayyouimagine.” She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. “I was—” She broke off, her eyes going wide. “Lucifer!”
“I beg your pardon?” He was no angel, certainly, but surely that was a bit of an exaggeration. “There’s no need for name calling.”
“Notyou, the dog!”
Dog? What bloody dog? Had she lost her mind? “There’s no—”
But in the next instant, therewasa dog. At leastsomethingwith fluffy white fur had just pranced into the middle of the room. “How the devil did he get into my study?”
“I told you, your front door was open. He darted inside.” She didn’t spare him a glance, but crept toward the dog, who’d plopped himself down in the center of the carpet as if he’d done so dozens of times before. “Lucifer? Come here, sweetheart.”
The dog let out a petulant whine, watching her warily.
“Come here, Lucifer, or I promise you, you’ll regret—yes, that’s it, darling. Such a good boy…” She swooped down, snatched up the dog, and straightened with a squirming ball of fur in her arms. “Ah, ha! Got you, you devil.”
